About this Blog

This blog, maintained by Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Touro Law Center Dean and Professor of Law Patricia Salkin, is designed to provide a forum for the discussion of current laws, policies and decisions that affect the use of land. It highlights new court decisions, new state and federal laws and policies, and actions at the local government level that guide and/or impact land use and community development. Current contributors to the blog include Touro Law graduate Matthew Loeser and Touro Law student Heidi Kolence.

Readers may use this blog to keep current on trends in land use law by subscribing to the daily email to bring news of the “case or development of the day,” and readers may also watch developments in specific areas of the law by using the categorical tags to review all recent posting relating to a particular topic. All views and opinions are welcome in the form of comments to individual postings. Check back periodically to see whether others have posted comments to cases of interest to you and and/or your clients.

Faculty and students of law and planning may use this blog to stimulate classroom discussion on new developments in the law, as well as to generate ideas for paper topics and course presentations. Students are welcome to contribute to the comments on the postings including providing perspectives and observations based upon other related cases you may be reading in your coursework.

I’ve taught land use law for 25+ years and wish there had been a site like this during all that time. It is terrific and will be a staple reading source for my graduate students for the next 25 years. 🙂 Congratulations on a great endeavor.

The law requires developers to pay $40,000 to have the municipality hire an expert to perform an economic benefit analysis that becomes part of the municipal site plan approval. The planning board then must make a determination not only on land use criteria, but also on economic benefit criteria. I worked (unsuccessfully) on behalf of a Maine real estate trade association to try to prevent enactment of the bill, but politically the anti Walmart and anti big box advocates had the ear of the legislature.

We have yet to see the impact of the bill, and it has not yet been tested in the courts.

The Environmental Council of Sacramento and Sierra Club filed a lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court in March 2013. It is challenging the board of supervisors’ approval in January/2013 of a low-density development known as Cordova Hills. The case may be a key legal test for SB 375, a 2008 state law requiring regional governments to meet GHG-reduction targets established by the Air Resources Board. Can a global issue wag local land use policy?

Disclaimer

This blog is provided for general informational purposes only. It should not be construed as legal advice and is not intended to be a substitute for legal counsel. Persons requiring legal advice should retain a properly licensed lawyer. No attorney-client relationship will be formed based on use of this site and any comments or posts to this blog will not be privileged or confidential.